Mid-July, when the monsoon in Mumbai is usually at its fiercest, top BMC officials, led by the deputy mayor, will be on a junket to Germany.
Mid-July, when the monsoon in Mumbai is usually at its fiercest, top BMC officials, led by the deputy mayor, will be on a junket to Germany.
A team of 14 officials and corporators will take part in the celebration in Stuttgart from July 14 to 21, to mark the 40th anniversary of Mumbai’s sister-city ties with the German city. The mayor of Stuttgart had invited a delegation from Mumbai for the celebration.
Ties between sister cities are essentially a give-and-take relationship on cultural and developmental issues. The BMC has such a relationship with nine other cities.
Deputy mayor Vinod Ghedia, Congress corporator Sameer Desai, NCP leader Niyaz Vanu, two Sena corporators (whose names have not yet been decided), with additional commissioner Madhav Sangale, deputy commissioner Rajendra Vale, chief engineer Ashok Shintre (building proposals), protocol officer Jagdish Dave, Nair Dental College dean Suhasini Nagda, and municipal secretary Mrudul Joshi, are among those who will attend the celebration.
Sangale, who is in charge of the eastern suburbs, will be away when his presence may be required the most for handling disaster situations. Vale has a good record of handling such situations, while the deputy mayor and other leaders would have been expected to help citizens resolve their problems in the event of a disaster.
Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and chief secretary Johny Joseph have cancelled their foreign tours to ensure they are in the state during monsoon. It is strange that the BMC officers will be away, remarked a BMC officer, requesting anonymity.
Mayor Shubha Raul had sanctioned the tour on April 24. The proposal has been forwarded to the urban development ministry for approval.
Raul also wanted to be on the trip, but the Sena forced her to remove her name from the list, the officer said.
m_pandurang@dnaindia.net
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